


A Second Chance

by bornofstars



Series: Second Hope [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Darth Vader's A+ parenting, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Imperial Inquisitors (Star Wars), Implied/Referenced Suicide, Not Canon Compliant, Palpatine is his own warning, Sith Leia Organa, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bornofstars/pseuds/bornofstars
Summary: A follow-up to A Second Hope.Leia Organa is stolen away from Alderaan at the age of 10, and taken to the Inquisitor's training program at the Emperor's request.She believes herself orphaned and without any surviving family.She is wrong.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Darth Vader, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Series: Second Hope [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2106489
Comments: 25
Kudos: 146





	A Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This is a follow-up to A Second Hope, which I would recommend reading beforehand. I never expected so many people to like it, and a few people had questions regarding the origin of Sith Leia, so I decided to write this! I hope this satisfies everybody's curiosity lol

_**Leia** _

She’s dreaming again.

Leia feels the cold marble beneath her feet as she walks through the palace hall. It’s silent, and outside the sky is dark and still, moonlight seeping through the windows. She passes statues and portraits, guided by an unseen and gentle tug, like a rope wrapped around her waist. 

There is no sense of the usual wariness that Leia usually feels when she walks the palace halls late at night, - the fear of being caught by the guards is absent. On the contrary, Leia is filled with anticipation; it’s been a long time since she’s had this particular dream.

The doors open without her touching them. 

Leia steps into the throne room, footsteps silenced by her slippers. She’s still dressed in her nightgown, hair braided neatly by her mother. The lights are all off in the room, but Leia recognises the man on the throne straight away, visible in the moon’s light. She’s running forward, her face breaking into a smile. 

He’s been visiting her for years, for as long as she can remember. 

“Hello!” She calls, heading up the stairs. The man on the throne leans forwards, face coming into view. Upon waking from her dreams, she always forgot what he looks like, and the way his voice sounds. But now it is familiar, and her heart soars as she recognises him. 

Leia’s been taught to bow and keep her face impassive when meeting people of importance, but he’s an old friend who doesn’t need such formalities. She cannot recall a time when she had not dreamed of him, even as a young toddler. He throws open his arms, and grabs both of her hands in his. 

“Ah, Leia.” He says, teeth glinting blue in the moonlight as he smiles. “You grow more beautiful each time we meet.” 

Leia feels herself blush, despite the cold feeling growing from where their skin meets; he is never warm, no matter how close she holds him. 

The man pulls at her gently until she takes her usual spot on his knee, leaning back against the throne to look at her properly. He smells like the inside of a closet, moth-bitten and _old._

“So,” He says once he is comfortable. Leia places her hands together in her lap, the way she had been taught to. “How goes your studies?” 

“Alright,” Leia says eagerly. Her hands wrap around the loose folds of his robe. “My tutors say I have a gift for intergalactic history. We’ve been learning all about the downfall of the Republic.” 

The man hums. “An interesting topic. Politics does seem to be your forte, young one. You certainly take after your mother.” 

“Yes,” Leia beams under his praise. She thinks that he perhaps means her father, who's a senator, not her mother, but doesn’t comment on it. She recalls her last lesson, that she’d had in the late afternoon, and her good mood dampens slightly. The man notices instantly, but does goad her into an answer. He always lets her broach the topic herself. He's a confidant of all her worries and secrets. 

“Aunt Tia is overseeing my etiquette training.” She stumbles over the word etiquette, but the man doesn’t correct her, - “And is talking about my duties as the Princess. She started talking about having a husband, but I don’t think I want that.” 

  
  


“Being a Princess has a lot of duties,” The man says pensively.

Leia feels a crushing feeling of disappointment that her friend agrees with her Aunts, who want her to be a simpering Lady of Alderaan, staying home and letting her husband have all of the fun. She nods, fiddling with the fabric of her nightgown. The man’s large, mottled hand comes down and wraps around her knuckles, taking them both under one of his own. 

“You don’t want that to be your life though, do you, Leia?” He asks softly. She looks up into his eyes, hesitating for a moment. 

“It’s not that I’m ungrateful,” She starts, remembering what she had been taught. Her birth parents had died in the Clone Wars, and she’d been incredibly lucky to end up in the Royal House of Alderaan. _Everyone makes sacrifices,_ her mother had told her. Leia has duties to her household and to her station. She instantly feels bad for allowing her friend to see how ungracious she was. Leia hangs her head in shame, watching his pale hands hold hers. 

“No, no, of course not.” He purrs. “But you’d much rather be exploring, seeing the galaxy. I understand that. If you’d like, I can make it happen.” 

Leia frowns, looking up at the man. His face, even in the dark, is so kind, so grandfatherly, that she almost believes his kind words. 

“But you are just a dream.” She says sadly. “You said so yourself.” 

“Dreams are powerful things.” He answers. For a moment, his eyes gleam yellow, but Leia blinks and the colour is gone. “Tell me, Leia, how is your father?” 

Leia is slightly confused by the sudden change of conversation, but is thankful for the respite nonetheless. 

“He’s on Coruscant.” She says importantly. “There’s a bill to be passed.” 

“Ah, yes.” He says, as though he already knew. But how could he? He’s a part of Leia’s dreams, and only knows what she does. She nods anyway, and closes her eyes as she leans heavily into the man’s robed chest. 

“Child,” The man says after a moment. His hand reaches out and strokes the top of her braid, as soft as silk. “This is the last time that I will come to you like this.” 

“What?” Leia asks, trying to rear back to look up at him, but his hands become steel, entrapping her. 

“Shush, shush.” He soothes. His hand strokes her hair down flat against her skull, and for a second there’s a pinch of pain as his nails rip at her scalp. “It’s alright. We’ll see each other quite soon; you just won’t know it.” 

“You mean I’ll forget you again?” She murmurs. With each stroke of his hand, she grows more tired, as though the fabric of his robes is absorbing her. 

“Yes.” He says. “But I’ll remember you. You have an important role to play. You just do not know it yet.” His hand pauses in her hair. 

  
  


“You will serve me well, Leia.” She feels his breath hit her cheek, and the scent of rotting flesh suddenly fills her nose. “Like your father before you.” 

“Now, wake up.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Leia opens her eyes from a blank blur of sleep, her mind already letting go of the soft voice and friendly eyes in the throne room.

There’s a strange feeling in her mind, like a pressure, as though she’s receiving a premonition. She had felt such a way a few times before, like when her Father had fallen in the gardens and Leia had bolted from her classes to find him without knowing how she had known. This is far worse,- it’s as though the air is shifting around her urgently, filling up with dread and terror. 

  
  


A loud blaring sound fills her ears and she sits up, tangled in her bedsheets. Blearily, she notes that light is shining through her windows, but not the familiar tinge of blue from the moon, or the oranges of dawn, but a monstrous red. It flares into darkness before sparking up again. She’s seen it on the holonet before - blaster fire. 

The Palace is full of commotion, and Leia feels her heart begin to hammer in her chest. She hurriedly gets out of bed and heads for the door, but the sound of heavy footfalls makes her freeze. They’re somehow different from the sound of the palace guards, and Leia doesn't much fancy going out and finding out who is out there. 

She glances around frantically. 

The light in the fresher makes a loud hum, and they’d be sure to check for her in there. She is unsure as of _who_ was, but knows instinctively that she is in danger. As the footsteps pound closer, and a scrambled voice echoes nearby, as though coming through a communicator, she instinctively drops to the floor and rolls under her bed. 

Her bedroom’s security interface is overridden with a quick combination of beeps, and from her vantage point Leia sees a droid roll in. She looks at all of her toys littering the floor and hopes that they would think her room is vacant, a play room, and not the place she sleeps in. White boots enter, several pairs, and she hears the same garbled voices, as though they’re talking through a visor or helmet. Stormtroopers. 

  
  


The Emperor had gifted Alderaan with a garrison of Stormtroopers several months ago - Leia vividly remembered her Mother’s outrage at their arrival. The only threat posed to Alderaan is the Empire itself, she had said. But what are they doing in the palace? 

“Search the room,” One voice orders. “She can’t have gotten far.” 

She watches in horror as the feet move around her room, opening her wardrobe and fresher. One of them steps on a stuffed Nerf and kicks it viciously against the wall with a curse. Leia holds a hand over her own mouth to quieten her breathing, thinking desperately of her mother, her Aunts, her tutors. Were they already dead? 

Leia lets out a small cry against her palm when a soldier gets down on his knees and meets her gaze through his helmet. His hand stretches out and she scrambles backwards, knees burning against the carpet. He is too bulky to fit beneath her bed, but another hand wraps around her ankle and drags her out into the light, a Trooper pulling her roughly to her feet. 

“Princess Leia,” He says. “You are to come with us immediately.” 

“What’s happening?” She asks, stepping back as his hands reach out to grab onto her shoulders. He gets a hold of her anyway, pulling her deftly away and down the hall. 

“It’s not safe here.” He says shortly. “We’re taking you someplace where it is.” 

“Where’s my mother?” Leia asks, trying desperately to sound as regal and cool as her. They all hear the tremor in her voice however, and nobody answers her question. 

Dimly, Leia looks around and sees the blaster fire still smouldering in the marble pillars, fallen handmaidens and guards littering the floor. There is a feeling in the air around them, of death and destruction. It makes Leia feel physically ill, but she’s too afraid to tell the trooper dragging her that she might throw up the contents of her stomach. She swallows her dread down and keeps walking.

The Empire had come to Alderaan, Leia realises. It is a day her father had promised would never come. 

* * *

  
  
  


The troopers escort her onto a Star Destroyer, which immediately jumps into hyperspace and heads for the Imperial City. She is told nothing, kept in a small room with a cot, fresher, and some children's holos on datapads. She spends most of the journey in a blur of tears and outrage, demanding to know what had become of her mother, her friends, even the Royal droids. It's all for naught. One particular trooper ends up caving when delivering her tray of food and tells her where they were headed, and to try and be strong if she wants her family to live. That gives Leia just enough hope, a reminder of who she is, to attempt to remain calm. 

  
  


She thinks of her Father’s rigid composure, steady as a cliff front on a rocky shore. Her Mother’s cold face of Alderaani steel. Leia wears both of them, bares her station upon her shoulders, as she is escorted into the Imperial palace. 

  
  


She’s never travelled to Coruscant before, but has seen enough from the holonet to recognise the grand architecture, the criss cross of speeder lanes. The amount of propaganda surprises Leia. There are posters everywhere; to sign up to the Imperial Navy, to report suspicious rebel behaviour. The Alliance, Leia recalls. They’re branded as rebels, as not to give them a title, she remembers overhearing her Father say. A name would give them power, would make them more than just a whispered rumour.

Had her parents been killed by the Alliance? 

The stormtroopers march her up a set of stairs and into a turbolift. From there, a maze of corridors. 

They enter a large room with a throne, similar to Alderaan’s, except the decadence exceeds her home planet ten-fold. Flags and banners hang from the pillars, and courtiers are all milling around, barely sending a glance in her direction. In vain, Leia searches for her Father amongst the crowds, but he is nowhere to be seen. 

Instead, Leia’s eyes are drawn to the man on the throne. He is ghastly and pale, withered like a corpse, and covered by a heavy black robe. A wave of familiarity goes through her like a shiver. 

This is the Emperor.

Several red helmed guards stand around him, but he seems oblivious to both them and her, watching the crowds around them with a small smile. She’s seen his face on countless propaganda posters and holos, but in person he is far more terrifying. She can almost feel him, cold and damp like ship coolant Leia had once spilled everywhere in the Royal hangar. As she looks him over, his yellow gaze snaps over to hers and she almost stops in her tracks, struck to the heart as though hit by a stun blast. Wordlessly, the troopers change direction, and begin to walk her over to the raised dais the that the throne is sat upon. 

  
  


For one moment, Leia considers digging her heels in and allowing herself to be dragged towards what is surely her doom. But once more she is reminded of her parents, and how they would want her to act. She is unsure of the fate of her home planet, but what she does know is that she is representative of Alderaan, and has to act accordingly. So, with her head held high, Leia allows herself to approach the Galactic Emperor. 

  
  
  


“Princess Leia.” He says. 

She has heard his voice somewhere before, but just can’t place it. 

_He’s from Naboo_ , her mind supplies. _A former senator of the Republic, and then Supreme Chancellor. Now Emperor._

The facts aren't comforting, but Leia takes solace in them anyway. For all she had complained about her lessons and schooling, she’d give anything to be stuck once more in another boring lecture. 

  
  


“Your Majesty.” Leia replies, bowing her head, as she had been taught. 

The Emperor’s eyes gleam brighter, as though she’s just told him a particularly funny joke. Her heart begins to pound faster in her chest. 

“You are very brave, after all you have been through. A credit to your planet.” He says, waving a crooked hand. Instantly, the Stormtrooper at her shoulder lets her go. She nods in thanks, but is unable to mask her confusion and nerves. 

“Forgive me, your Majesty,” She says, willing her voice not to shake. It still has the childish lilt that all ten year olds have, no matter how much she tries to suppress it. “But I have not been informed of what has led me to Coruscant.” 

“Oh, dear girl.” The Emperor says. His voice feels soothing now that he’s talking only to her. Leia looks up at him, craning her neck slightly. 

He is evil, she had heard her parents say. A dictator and war-mongerer, but his sympathy feels so genuine. Leia feels a strange urge to climb up into his lap and let him hold her. She mentally shakes the thought away with a shudder. Less than a week away from her parents and she's already acting touch-starved and needy. Not like a Princess at all. 

“Let us walk.” He says, standing from the throne. She follows him from the stairs and to a curtained exit just behind them, leading to a high-ceilinged passageway. His red guards follow at a distance, and Leia watches them out of the corner of her eye warily. After a few moments, he begins to talk once more. 

“I will not dance around with niceties and pleasantries. Rebel insurgents charged the Royal palace,” He says. “They were tired of your Mother’s rule, and wished for a change in leadership. My army was able to stop them, but the rebels left no survivors, excluding yourself.” 

The distinct feeling of icy water being thrown in her face rushes over Leia. She keeps walking, keeping the same measured, royal pace, but inside her everything freezes up and goes numb. 

“I-I don’t understand.” She says quietly, eyes fixating on the embroidery of the Emperor’s ornate robes. They look as though she had seen them before. The ghost of a memory. 

“I am sorry, your Highness.” The Emperor says, non-existent eyebrows drawing together. “Your Father was inconsolable. When he first heard the news, he assumed that you too had been killed. It pains me to tell you, but your Father took his own life in his sorrow.” 

She understands that he is speaking, but it's as though he is talking backwards, the words all jumbling over each other despite his clear voice. When they begin to make sense Leia does falter, the cold marble seeping up into her slippers. What insurgents? She wants to ask. How had they breached the palace? How had her father taken his life? Why was he not informed of her survival? It didn't feel real, like a practical joke or riddle she is supposed to solve. There had been no talk of a rebellion against her parents; in fact, the only murmurings of an insurgence Leia had ever heard was that against the Empire.

Before she can be overcome with grief, the Emperor’s hand comes down softly onto her shoulder and it all seems to numb, fade into the darkness that is swarming through her. She feels as though it was an old pain, though she is far too young to have experienced such an occurrence. The Emperor wouldn’t lie to her; what had he to gain from that? He is kind enough to see her, to tell her of Alderaan’s fate. 

“You are parentless.” The Emperor says patiently. “A ward of the Empire. There are thousands of children in your position as we speak, living in poverty and other desperate circumstances.” His hand moves on her shoulder for a moment in a soothing gesture. 

“But you are different.” He murmurs. “For one, you are the only member left of Alderaan’s dynasty. And you are special, Leia. You have a potential that you could never have dreamed of…” 

Leia closes her eyes and tries to hold herself together, leaning into his touch. She wants so desperately for her Mother to hold her, for her Father to tell her that everything will be alright. But none of that will happen, ever again. 

“I will not allow such potential to go to waste,” The Emperor continues. “I will find you a suitable guardian here in the Imperial Centre. You’ll never want for anything under my care.” 

Leia tries to form words, but none come. The distinct feeling of a hole opening up in her stomach consumes her as she stares out blankly at the statues and floor length windows surrounding them. 

“And in time, I will allow you to grow your potential. My apprentice will be introduced to you sometime soon.” He says this pensively, his eyes gleaming from beneath his hood. His gnarled fingers twitch, pale and twisted. Leia bites down on her lip so hard that it bleeds, but it does stop trembling somewhat. She has no idea who his apprentice is, but she's too focused on not letting herself cry ugly sobs in front of the Emperor, so she keeps her questions unspoken. 

“Thank me, child.” The Emperor says softly, lifting his other hand to stroke down her cheek. She hasn’t been aware that she had already started crying until he pulls the appendage away, and brings those gnarled fingers, glistening with tears, up to his mouth,- tasting them.

His eyes close, as though the taste is pleasurable. He licks his lips, revealing a maw of rotting teeth. 

_I’ll never cry again in front of a grown-up_ , Leia vows to herself. She steels herself before she speaks, remembering who she is, and how she is now in debt to the most powerful man in the galaxy. 

“Thank you, your Highness.” 

  
  


* * *

Guardianship turns out to be first a nanny droid, and then an officer who serves away on a star destroyer. 

The officer pays for her private tutor and sends regular comms asking if she is in need of anything. It’s a strange adjustment, and being on her own with her sadness for months,- bar a droid that flutters around after her, - is an experience in grief that almost drowns Leia. But then, she grows used to her new life of solitude under the Emperor’s wing, studying on a datapad and speaking with her distant new guardian over an encrypted com that is always static due to him being several systems away. 

  
  


She gets used to it. Adaptability, her Aunt’s used to say, was the key to surviving any difficult situation.

  
  


The day that a red-helmed guard brings her a wrapped gift, that’s revealed to be a holocron from the Emperor himself, is the day that it all changes.

The latent power within her surges, so monstrous and strong that she crushes the ornament without touching it, crushing the darkness that seeps out and tries to take her life. It was a test of her force ability, she realises only later. All her quick reflexes and premonitions that she’d never quite understood become clear to her after that day, soon after her eleventh birthday.

And then she’s introduced to Lord Vader, and the rest of the force initiates, and moves to live in their lodgings. On the Emperor’s orders, she is informed. She is to be trained to master her power. An honour, they say, that she has yet to truly earn. 

Lord Vader greets her by taking his saber against her training blade, and beats her so badly that it takes weeks of bacta for her muscles and ligaments to heal the first time that they meet. No amount of medicine or rest cures the scar that runs down her neck and chest from a particularly vicious swipe of his blood red saber. 

Childhood ends with a sharp jolt, like a cut off burst of laughter, descending into silence. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Block. Attack. Strike. 

Her shoulders are stiffening, and the hand wrapped around her saber is profusely leaking pus and blood as more blisters open as the hours go on. 

Leia says nothing, trying to tap into the pain, divert it, make it useful to her. Feed the power that feels as blocked and intermittent as bad wiring. 

Block. Attack. Strike. 

Sweat is getting into her eyes but she makes no movement to swipe the fluid away. The air rapidly cooling on her face feels like mercy, and for a moment she is distracted, her form slightly out of time and her footwork falling out of sync. She corrects her stance quickly, glancing around the hall as though there’s somebody there to watch her. But it’s empty; the dead of night. The only time she feels a fraction comfortable in the large cavern of the training hall. 

Mastering Shii-Cho had been a matter of ease. The other initiates all watched Leia with unrestrained jealousy as she wielded her training saber effortlessly. Power had flown through her veins, thrumming like bloodlust. Everybody else was unworthy to even train by her side. 

The Emperor himself had come to watch her move through her forms, hooded and silent from a high balcony. She could sense a deep pride, and an almost indulgent amusement,- and finally, _finally,_ Leia had truly felt that she had found her place in Imperial City. 

And then Lord Vader came to training the next day. 

Block. Attack. Strike. 

The scar that runs through her body hurts at night, as all wounds gifted by lightsabers do. He’d attacked her so viciously that she’d truly thought she would die. 

Her mind runs over that day. He had fought her one-handed as though she were a pesky bug. Watching her through his insidious mask as he beat her into submission. 

Block. Attack. Strike. 

Her confidence feels like it had gone with him as he’d stepped over her twitching body, cape trailing across her mangled neck.

The other initiates don’t look upon her in envy anymore. More of a glibness at her deformity, each time her tunic moved to reveal the curdled scar. The Quartermaster didn’t allow her to wear anything high-necked. She had to wear her shame like a badge for all to see. 

Block. Attack. - 

“You have not improved since I last observed you.” 

By the skin of her teeth, Leia does not topple over from where she’s midway through her strike. She stops herself from turning at the last second to look at the Sith Lord, who, despite his breathing apparatus, has managed to sneak up behind her unheard. 

“Continue your form.” Lord Vader commands. 

Block. Attack. Strike. 

  
Block. Attack. Strike. 

“Falling behind your agemates,” He comments, and she hears the heavy step of his boots reverberating on the tile of the floor as he begins to circle her. Alarm bells shoot off in her head, and the hairs on her arms stand as though a predator is hunting her. 

Not too crude of a metaphor, considering. 

“The Emperor himself requested your presence in this program. I am beginning to doubt my Masters’ decision. You are pathetic.” 

  
The mask must make his voice boom like that. Leia can hear the malice in his tone, but she says nothing, merely going through her form almost robotically, pulling away from the panic that’s beginning to brew, reaching for her anger. 

The other initiates are able to tap into rage. Most of them have come from a life of hardship, and the resentment they’ve felt for as long as they can remember aids them, gives them power. 

Leia tries. She does. But everytime she thinks about her mother dying at the hands of the faceless rebel invaders, she just feels an overwhelming sadness. 

Vader senses her weakness like blood in a clear pool of water. 

He moves around into her line of vision, a hulking black monolith that stalks closer, watching every movement for another flaw to pick at. 

“Practicing forms clearly will not aid in your connection to the force, nor save you when you go up against an opponent.” He says. With a sickening hiss, his lightsaber is freed from his belt and glowing red in the low lights around them. “Attack me. The same stance.” 

She doesn’t want to. Vader is unforgivable and vicious, more than she can ever be. His power rolls off of him in waves. A fraction of it would be enough to fuel her into a frenzy. Leia can’t even imagine the amount of anger he must carry on his armoured shoulders. 

She’s about to finally open her mouth, to tell him that the form always starts with a diagonal block, when he’s bringing his blade down, and she’s moving quickly to stop him from cutting her in half. 

The form’s attack is an immediate follow-up, after twisting the blade, aiming for a shot to the torso. He parries easily, - one-handed, she notes. The strike, that involves her rotating her shoulder and stepping forward, windmilling down to try and land a blow on her opponent’s shoulder, is easily avoided. Vader attacks again, once more an over-arm smashing motion, making her arms vibrate with the force of his blow. 

“Your weakness is undeniable.” Vader says, his voice booming, cutting Leia like a physical blow. She says nothing; she knows better than to respond to his taunts. Instead, she tries to gather her anger and frustration within her, seeking the rage-driven focus that remains so illusive to her. 

“I do not see what my Master sees in you. You are an embarrassment to the Sith.” He continues, effortlessly blocking her blow that aims for his stomach. 

His words feel like physical blows, and instantly the force responds to her growing anger. She breaks form, and for a few moments, her attack is coordinated, vicious, and would down a lesser opponent. But Vader merely deflects each hit, twirling his saber in an attempt to dislodge her blade, - jolting her wrist so hard she thinks briefly that it must be fractured, - but she manages to hold on, switching to a two-handed grip. 

“Pathetic,” He hisses as she backs away to catch her breath. “You have always been weak. Too weak to save your family. And your planet.” He steps back and his lightsaber retracts with a hiss. “You do not deserve to taste my blade.” 

Leia knows on some level that his taunts have a purpose. To access the dark side, one must feed on one’s rage and anger. But she can’t help but feel that his hatred to her is personal, as though he truly, truly _loathes_ her. 

“Attack me.” He taunts. “You wish to hurt me, then do it.” 

With a cry, she does. She goes for his face, which instantly she realises is a critical mistake, because it leaves her lower body vulnerable. But he merely bats her blade away, like a bothersome insect. The apathy only feeds her rage more. 

She’s out of control on the power, like she’s just burst through a dam or a pipe, and the dark side washes over her, her sore muscles and aching body forgotten. 

For the first time in her life, she genuinely wishes to kill somebody. Not just to hurt in the sense of incapacitation, - but to wound, to sever. She wishes she could knock that stupid helmet right off of his face. 

He gives her barely a second of reprieve before he’s attacking again, and her block is stronger than its’ been all night, her adrenaline giving a final burst as she skims her saber along his, twirling her hand to disarm him. His grip is so strong that he doesn’t budge, instead he immediately steps forward, pushing her back, with a one-handed whack from above his head. 

She evades, but barely, and for a second her saber glances of her armour, the dark side pulsing - 

And then he sweeps his blade, and she watches as her saber bounces, and her hand, bloodless and already cauterised at the very top of her wrist, falls to the training room floor. 

“Let this be a lesson.” Vader says casually, as though he hadn’t just amputated her, and Leia is too scared to move, too scared to look at the stump where her hand was mere seconds ago; too scared to cry out in pain. 

His lightsaber, that took her hand away, turns off with a hiss. 

He looks down at her like she’d crawled out of a pile of dirt. 

Funny, how he conveys such hatred through a mask. 

He leans close, so she’ll really hear the menacing tone of his voice.

  
“Never forget how weak you truly are.” 

* * *

She finds out that Lord Vader is her father when she is nineteen-years-old. 

Emperor Palpatine had sent her on a mission to Jedha, to chase down a rumour that detailed a band of former Jedi temple guards banding together to aid in the Rebellion. It had been just that, a rumour, but she’d managed to take out an entire Rebel cell operating close to the Empire’s little mining project. 

She’d had a night to spare before she was due home to give her report, and in the orange desert, where she’d sat mediating by her TIE fighter, the vision had come to her. Only for a matter of seconds; two, scorching twin suns, a man with curling hair and a scar through his eye, a pregnant woman in the traditional clothes of Naboo, stroking a swollen, pregnant stomach. A flash of the scarred man, with eyes burning golden, surrounded by lava. The hiss of that respirator she knew so well. And the feeling of absolute, unequivocal truth. Vader, the man before the suit, is her father. 

A couple of years ago, she may have rejoiced to have a living relative. Or cried that it was Lord Vader, of all people. But Leia just contemplates under the black sky of a collapsing planet, and finds that her reaction is rather muted. She knows, perhaps through the force, or perhaps just through intuition, that Lord Vader had been just as unaware as she is. 

Leia wonders, idly, if he has been visited by the same vision. If he would even care that she is his offspring. She thinks him incapable of such emotion, such attachment. 

  
At this point, she thinks that she is also just as incapable of caring. 

Because it does not matter now. Leia is a considerable Sith in her own right. She takes missions decreed by the Emperor himself. Leads battalions of troopers in every corner of the galaxy. Soon, she’ll outmatch Vader’s power. Even the Emperor, perhaps. 

Her past is dead. There is only now. 

When she’s flying home in her fighter, Leia receives another intermittent vision. The two suns again, and a sandy landscape so vast that it’s unending. A boy, about her age, in white farming coveralls and a bucket hat, squinting back at her as though she’s just materialised in his line of vision. His hands clutch an ornate lightsaber, unlit. 

She feels seen, and jerks against the pilot’s seat, breaking the strange connection and pulling out of the meditative trance she’d fallen into. 

The blue blur of hyperspace around her lulls her into her first sleep in days. When she awakens, rest has provided no clarity. 

  
  


* * *

The Emperor sits in his throne when she enters the hall, and Leia bows at the staircase, almost kissing her own boot. 

“Welcome home, Leia.” He says. The other initiates went on to become Inquisitors, stripped of their names and former identities. Only Leia, to her knowledge, was allowed to keep her name. The Empire refers to her as ‘The Diplomat,’ sent out on behalf of the Emperor to quickly smother any up-tides of civil unrest. Not that there’s much diplomacy involved.

The Rebel’s names for her are not as flattering, though not entirely inaccurate.

“Thank you, your Highness.” She says automatically. 

  
  


“Did you find Jeda to your liking?” The Emperor asks from beneath his hood. “One of the first civilisations to explore the force, you know.” 

“Pleasant,” Leia replies, standing as he gestures for her to do so. “The supposed Jedi sentinels were mere boys masquerading as such in their fore-fathers’ armour. However, there were more rebels active than expected. I believe they were there to stop the mining. All were dealt with, of course.” 

The Emperor’s gnarled hand reaches up to stroke his chin, and Leia glances over to Lord Vader, who stands with his arms crossed by his Master’s throne. She reaches out carefully for a moment in the force, and finds his shields tightly raised. But then, she sees his mask move, only a bare inch, and feels covered eyes meet hers. 

The force whispers around them. She feels him reaching out, uncharacteristically tentative, before pulling away before he’s detected.

_He knows._

She gives her briefing and is dismissed without looking over at Lord Vader once, but for the entirety of her time in the throne room, she feels his eyes tracking her every move. 

* * *

She expects some sort of reaction from Lord Vader in the days that follow. 

Since her graduation from training, the Emperor had kept them rather separate; Vader often did not need assistance in his duties as the Imperial Enforcer, and he was far too dense to handle anything requiring a modicum of delicacy. Although most of Leia’s missions tended to yield similar gruesome results, she didn’t have such a brutal and straight-forward approach. 

However, now that arrangements for the moon-sized battle station were truly underway, Leia found herself bumping into Lord Vader more often than she’s used to. And aside from staring at her from the safety of his opaque lenses, he never once spoke to her, besides from the occasional barked order or grunt of confirmation whenever she asked a question. 

The visions have come and gone over the last few weeks. 

Filling in blanks, feeding her memories of another life. Her birth mother, beautiful and statuesque, brushing her hair with an ornate comb. Her father, cutting down some strange creatures in the middle of a desert, much younger, with a padawan braid and a blue lightsaber. And then, flames, screaming cattawals detailing love and betrayal. 

The last vision had been a man, consumed by black smoke, writing on the floor, limbless. 

It’s fairly easy to connect the dots, as scant as the information is. 

  
She’d always wondered how Vader had gotten put into that suit. 

She considers confronting him, or even approaching the Emperor, but her logic quickly stomps out that particular idea. The Emperor has acted more of a father to her than Vader ever could. He had taken her in when her family had died, and given her access to unlimited power, allowed her to embrace the Dark Side. In time, it’s likely that she will overthrow Vader, and take his place as the Apprentice. 

Him being her father would change nothing. 

  
And so, she goes about her duty. 

The Emperor sends her to babysit Vader, who’s blatant dislike of the DS-1 station has the upper crust of officers and Moffs worried for their wellbeing. 

Governor Tarkin greets her with a small parade of troopers in the hangar, and Leia for once understands why Vader dislikes him so. 

“Lady Organa,” He says, and his eyes flicker over her face with a swipe of judgement that has her gritting her teeth as he leads her down onto the deck.

“Governor Tarkin,” She returns. For once, she understands Vader’s contempt of the battle station. The hive-like buzz of so many life forms in close quarters puts even Imperial City to shame. 

“Construction will be finished in a matter of weeks,” He states. “Although, I believe that the Emperor receives updates both directly, and from Lord Vader.” He casts a glance at her down his nose, which Leia observes to be rather crooked from the side. “So I am at a loss as to why your presence is necessary.” 

“That is none of your concern,” She replies. “I am here on the Emperor’s orders. Do you dare question his judgement?” 

“You are a religious Zealot,” He says dryly, apparently running out of charm, coming to a stop in the middle of a hallway. “And we already have one of your kind on board.I do not see why two of you are required in military business.”

“Why, Governor Tarkin,” Leia replies. She brushes back her cloak, and runs her gloved hand over her lightsaber, hanging from her belt. Stars, she wishes Tarkin wasn’t off-limits. “I’d be happy to demonstrate how… _zealous_ I can be.” 

His lip curls, and a scathing reply is surely brewing in his throat. But whatever he is about to say is cut off by the blare of alarms, the corridor bathing in the red lights of emergency. 

  
  


* * *

  
Leia watches the hologram of the boy from her vision, bolting alongside an ancient astromech droid, and jumping into her docked fighter. 

It’s almost laughable, the way he looks so ridiculously out of place, hair light and clothes dirtied and sand covered as he runs across the hangar bay. He almost trips over a pile of wires, arms swinging comically, but then he’s up and away, taking her ship and piloting off, unimpeded.

“It is good to see that your battlestation is at the forefront of security,” Leia remarks. Beside her, Vader makes a sound behind his mask that could be perceived as a chuff of laughter.

Tarkin is decidedly less amused. 

“The station’s computers have been analysed,” He says crisply. “A technological read-out of the DS-1 was taken and stored on the astromech. He’s already sent a message that is being decrypted as we speak, but it is likely to be the technical read-out. Therefore, it is imperative that he and the droid be captured and neutralised.” 

  
  


“He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous,” Leia says, leaning closer. “How did nobody spot him?” 

“Security reports indicate that he boarded yesterday under the guise of a new recruit, in full uniform, which he later shed.” Tarkin replies. “The droid was hidden in a shipment of engine parts. It seems premeditated, although this farce was successful mostly by sheer luck.” 

“Do not underestimate the boy,” Vader says, and Leia resists turning to look at him in surprise. For the first time, she wonders if their visions had been completely identical. Perhaps he had seen the boy too. 

Tarkin clears his throat, staring rigidly at the holo as though secrets would be revealed if he glared hard enough. 

“The trajectory of the fighter points to one of the planets in the neighbouring Tato system,” Tarkin continues. “Tatooine, to be exact.”

She feels a strange rift in the force, and a sudden darkening that’s almost palpable. The coldness that creeps into the meeting room _is_ noticeable, creeping up around them like a physical being. 

“I will go down to the planet’s surface,” Leia says, stepping back from the hologram. She’s intrigued by the boy. He had looked so startled in her vision that she’d had on Jedha, staring at her as though looking into a mirror. And even from the security holo, she sees the strange grace, mixed with clumsiness as he scurries across to his ship. A natural agility all force users possess. 

He means something. She just doesn’t know what yet. 

* * *

  
  


She gets to the hangar before remembering that the boy had taken her fighter. She’s halfway through turning to a technician to demand a new ship when Vader is storming past her towards an innocuous looking shuttle. 

“We will take this one.” He says as the boarding ramp comes down at a wave of his hand. “To attract less attention.” 

“I’m surprised you think this worthy of your time,” Leia remarks, snapping herself out of her momentary surprise. She follows him up the ramp, watching him duck under the doorway and head straight for the cockpit.

“The boy is significant.” Vader says. “As you well know.” 

Leia is suddenly seized with a desire to ask a multitude of questions. Did he really father her? Who was her mother? Was she still alive? And who was the boy? 

Who was she? 

“Do not.” He says, and for the first time, he doesn’t sound angry or sarcastic or blank.

  
  


He sounds _weary._

“Leia. I am as aware of our relationship as you. I wish that we could acknowledge it. That I could take my actions back. But we have set down different paths of destiny. Apologies or declarations will change nothing. We only have our present.”

She might have cried, once upon a time. Shouted and kicked and demanded to know the man before her. Her only living relative. To know who her mother is. Why he had abandoned her. How she had ended up in the Royal house of Alderraan. 

  
  


But the sadness merely fuels her connection to the dark. To her hatred. 

Something in her breaks. Perhaps her soul. Another piece, torn. She hardly feels it. 

“Was it worth it?” She asks. “All of this?” 

Vader glances over at her. 

She tries to imagine the man from her vision, hidden beneath the suit, but she just sees her own warped reflection, staring back at her. 

  
  


“Prepare yourself for take-off.” He replies. 

So she just nods silently, and straps herself into the co-pilot’s seat. 

His avoidance is answer enough. 

They land in the dunes of endless sands, and for a moment Leia hesitates when she looks over at Vader’s suit. He wades without comment through the sand beside her, the sun glinting wickedly off of the black dome of his helmet. They’re quick to find her TIE fighter, already being ravaged by small creatures all adorned in ragged hoods. 

“Over there,” She says, and in the distance she sees a glint of that silver droid, and a shock of blonde hair moving rapidly over the hill. Vader’s head snaps in a completely different direction however, to a nearby hut where a hooded figure is standing, hands on his hips. Like the two blazing suns above them, two prominent figures in the force shine ahead. 

  
  
  


“Kenobi,” Vader growls through his mask, and the dark side surges around him like a storm. He glances back to Leia as though she’s a mere afterthought.

“Seize the boy,” He snarls at her, drawing his saber. “Unharmed.” 

She runs, which is immensely difficult in the sand, but she uses the force to make her feet light and quick, and soon she’s gaining on the boy. 

His skin is tanned and his eyes are an unsettling blue, but there’s a steadfast calmness in his expression, even as he backs away from her. The lightsaber from her vision is there, unlit, in his hand. 

“Leia,” The boy says. “Leia, I know you. I can help you.” 

“You know nothing,” She says, oddly rattled by hearing her own name, and swings her saber without thinking. Vader’s order not to harm the boy is already pushed to the back of her mind. 

“I know you are Lord Vader’s daughter.” He says, his own blade, blue and humming, clashing against hers in an inexperienced but strong block. “And I know who he used to be, before he turned to the dark side.” 

“How do you know such things?” She asks before she can help herself, even as she twists away in a move that puts the boy on his backfoot.

  
“That man over there is his former master,” He says, and Leia glances fleetingly over her shoulder, seeing Lord Vader viciously attacking the hooded man, who has his own saber drawn in a defensive position. 

  
  


“He practically raised Vader, before the Sith made Vader turn to the dark and betray the Jedi order and the Republic.” 

She knows about Kenobi. All of the initiates and inquisitors do. His face has been plastered to posters all throughout Imperial City for years. Jedi traitor. High treason. The credit reward for a credible sighting is enough to buy a small moon. 

“Obi-Wan’s guarded me since my birth,” The boy continues quickly, jumping onto her hesitation. She hadn’t noticed that she’d dropped her stance slightly, as the force revealed that the boy is telling the truth. “And he was meant to watch over you also. But the Emperor corrupted you, just like our father.” 

**Our father.**

Of course. She’s been stupid not to see it until now. They’re all connected, after all. Her. The boy. Vader. A family. The pregnant belly in her visions had carried not one baby, but two. 

She sees some resemblances. 

They have the same nose, and they are both on the shorter side. Just as she bore the most similarities to their mother, the boy resembles Vader before he wore the suit. Blonde hair and blue eyes, and skin tanned by the blistering sun. 

“Why were we raised apart if that’s so?” She asks, raising her blade again. For the first time in years she feels out of control. Years of honing her rage and anger feel like they’ve been physically removed from her memory, and she knows that she looks rather feral as she hacks at his raised saber.

“We were separated to lessen the chance of being found by the Empire,” The boy says, hastily lunging back and blocking her attack. “So that our powers would not be used for evil.” 

“I will not be fooled by Jedi lies.” She sneers at his weak parry. “If you would even call yourself that.” 

“I _am_ a Jedi.” He says determinedly. “My name is Luke Skywalker. And I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” 

Leia opens her mouth, but suddenly a Corellian ship is flying dangerously low above them, spitting up sand and throwing a violent wind down on them from its repulsors. They dip daringly, scouring the hills of dust, and Leia sees a hatch opening. 

“Come away with me,” Luke says, his eyes burning into hers intensely. He holds out a hand. “I can help you, Leia.” 

Behind her, she feels a presence, - the hooded figure of Kenobi, - snuffed out into the eternity of the force.

Luke flinches at the sensation like he's been struck, but quickly clenches his jaw in determination. She’s felt the same expression on her own face a thousand times. 

She could kill the boy. Even if he is her brother. Then she’d take down Vader too. She had grown more powerful than either of them could imagine. 

She could do it. 

But she doesn’t. She watches as he nods sadly and pulls away, jumping up with the grace only a force user could possess, and she ducks as the ship almost takes her out. 

In the heat of the broad daylight, Leia lays in the boiling sand, and watches the ship careen over the horizon. 

Strangely, she finds that she’s not too sad to see it go. 

Vader is stomping on a tattered brown robe when she approaches, as though half expecting Kenobi to be hiding under it. In his hand he holds an ornate Jedi lightsaber. 

“You must be pleased,” Leia says, shaking the sand out of her robes. “Another Jedi wiped out.” 

“I will be _pleased_ when my son is where he belongs,” Vader replies. He hangs the saber next to his own from his belt. His helmeted head swivels, and he’s looking down at her.

A strange feeling washes over her, as though his gaze is weighing down on her like a physical touch. For once, he doesn’t feel completely guarded, or brewing with hatred. There’s resignation and a bone-weariness that makes Leia want to sink under its pressure. He feels so _tired,_ and even though Vader has been hunting Kenobi for decades, there isn’t a hint of satisfaction or glibness that she would expect from besting him in a duel. 

  
  


Vader reaches out a hand and places it on Leia’s shoulder. The action is hesitant, as though he half expects Leia to return the favour and slice the appendage off. She doesn’t flinch, though.

The touch might have stirred something in her once, but she just feels a heavy prosthetic instead of some sort of emotional epiphany. 

“His destiny is with us, my daughter. I have seen it.” 

Leia hasn’t. Visions of the future are often inaccessible to her. Mostly, she’s plagued by memories; the sounds of blaster fire echoing through her childhood bedroom, the stomp of stormtrooper boots. And even then, she's quick to suppress thoughts of her time on Alderaan. There’s more than enough rage and pain accumulated in her time in Imperial City for her to access when she wants to draw on her hatred. 

It’s rare for her to think of the future.

But when she concentrates, all she sees in the days to come is immense sadness; smoke and burning, and the unshakeable stench of smouldering flesh. 

“Yes, Father.” She says anyway, clipping her own lightsaber to her side. ‘Father’ tastes funny on her tongue, like a sourness or acidity. “He will kneel to the dark side.” 

He leads them back to the shuttle.  
  


Before they can even leave the planet’s surface, the death star is exploding into a million pieces of debris in the white sky above them. 

  
  


Millions of lives in the force go abruptly silent. 

They look through the viewing port for several minutes in contemplative silence. Neither of them are particularly sad to see the monstrosity go. 

“To the Imperial City, then.” She suggests, as they both watch the firework-like spread of the destroyed battle station above them. It’s almost aimable between them. Meeting the boy,- her brother, his son,- has shifted them. In which direction, she’s unsure. But it feels odd, like a piece of her has suddenly appeared, making her a little bit more whole. 

  
  


Vader begins the pre-flight sequence without comment. 

  
  


* * *

It’s two years later when Luke returns. 

  
  


There’s been several close calls and run-ins. 

Leia had chased him from swamp-like planets filled with hostile fauna, to worlds made of lava or ice, and through asteroid belts all across the galaxy. But he’d remained evasive and quick to run, jumping into his X-wing, or into his Rebel comrade’s Corellian freighter. 

Vader had been far more vicious in his hunting of the Rebel Commander, sending bounty hunters from every corner of the universe, and deploying entire fleets the second a single report stated that Luke was in the vicinity. 

Emperor Palpatine laughs in their faces when they give their initial report, shortly after the loss of the Death Star. The death of Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom Leia learns to be the one to put Vader in his suit, is enough to put Palpatine in good spirits. They don’t mention Luke’s affiliation with the Jedi, nor his pleas to come with him, though Leia knows that the Emperor is far more perceptive and cunning than any of them. The likelihood of him being unaware of his existence was miniscule. Knowing the relationship shared between him and Vader even lower. But he merely twirls Obi-Wan’s lightsaber between two long fingernails, and dismisses them from his throne. 

From then on, they are told to hunt Skywalker down. Using any means that they may need. 

The day that he finally shows up is rather anti-climatic. 

He’d proven himself to be elusive and quick-footed, so when he appears with Vader’s hand on his shoulder in the throne room of the second death star one day, Leia jerks at his sudden appearance as though he’d teleported in. 

“Young Skywalker,” Palpatine says, and his grin is so malicious and _proud_ that Leia feels her stomach sinking from where she stands by this throne. Vader lets go and places his hands on his belt. He’s unreadable in the force, and his body language gives nothing away. She stares at him anyway, hoping that her eyes are meeting his behind his mask. 

_Please,_ she tries to convey. 

Because, try as she might, she’s grown a soft spot for her wayward brother. 

Despite only having fleeting interactions, - mostly involving running and slashing their sabers against each other, - Luke has never given up on her. Anytime he’d drawn his blade had been only to defend himself, never to hurt. And he always stares at her with his searching, blue eyes, and tells her that she could come away. From the Emperor and the Imperial City, and out from Vader’s watchful grip. Away from the dark side, as though it were a place one could exit and leave behind. As if she wouldn’t be shot dead the second she stepped foot on a rebel base.

Nobody’s ever been so persistent with her. Vader’s left her beaten and injured so many times that the only reason she’s still alive is because she’d dragged herself up and licked her wounds. The Emperor could dispose of her at any moment. Has threatened to do just that when she shows any incompetence or hesitation. If she had been too weak to endure their training, they would have left her for dead. 

But not Luke. 

Luke tells her, yells across battlefields and shouts over their melding blades, that there is still good left inside of her. Though, Leia laments briefly, - watching her brother stare at the Emperor with a muted fire of challenge,- Luke’s faith must be misplaced. He believes that Vader is just as worthy of redemption as her. And, yes, Leia’s hands are not exactly clean, but Vader has committed as many atrocities as one could imagine. His devotion to the dark has never wavered, save for the day he patted her shoulder and called her his daughter. And even then, he had still been deeply immersed in his hatred and grief. It had only been a removal of anger, if only for a moment, like a retreating tide. 

No, Vader will not be saved. No matter how idealistic Luke is. That ship has well and truly left the hangar. 

“Your training goes well,” The Emperor remarks calmly. With a wave of his hand, the binders ensnaring Luke’s wrists clack to the floor. “Like your father before you, you are a natural in the ways of the force. Impressive.” 

“Unlike my father,” Luke starts, stepping forward, and Leia can see that he’s lost the naive farmboy innocence as he confidently speaks, “And unlike my sister, I will not be swayed to the dark.” 

Vader’s hands twitch at his belt. Leia watches the interaction before her and feels like she’s watching somebody kicking a sleeping Nexu. 

“That is where you are mistaken,” Palpatine replies. He makes no move from his throne. Instead, he turns to look over through the view-port to the forest moon below. He hums contemplatively, as though admiring an abstract art piece. 

“You have been misled by your rebel friends. They believe that they will be able to defeat the Empire today.” He looks away from the moon and smiles with rotted teeth. “They will meet only their deaths.” 

“Very dramatic,” Luke replies, and Leia is blinking rapidly and biting down on her lip because nobody sasses the Emperor and lives. Vader stiffens again, and she sees his big gloved hands strangling his belt as he watches the altercation. 

Palaptine says nothing, but gestures for Leia to step forward. She does so instantly, years of training makes her boots move smoothly across the floor like it's a conditioned response. 

“Your sister, that is who you should take heed of. A fine specimen of Sith. She is very much her mother’s daughter. Passionate. Ambitious. All traits that aid in her pursuit of the dark side.” 

Leia stands on display like a tamed animal that’s leashed. Dangerous, but only on command. 

“Leia,” Luke says, ignoring the monologue. “You don’t want this. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen who you would have become without him. He killed your parents and invaded Alderaan to get to you. Made your own father hurt you. Why would you serve a master who treats you that way?” 

Leia blinks. 

The attack on Alderaan is another lifetime ago. A distant memory that is a blur she avoids, waking quickly from any dream that tries to make her relive that night. 

But she remembers. Remembers thinking it strange that the palace had been stormed so fast, how there had been no escalation of a rebellion, no need to be alert. How her father had taken his own life so quickly. How there had been no survivors. 

It’s pretty obvious, now that she thinks about it. 

Palpatine had needed her, hadn’t he? For when Vader grew old and defunct in his ridiculous suit, - he needed a younger, blood thirstier heir to his power. And Leia had been primed and trained, broken down and remoulded, just to his liking. 

Like her father before her.

  
  
  


She says nothing, hands behind her back, posture straight. Palpatine’s eyes move over her approvingly. He doesn’t sense her conflict, her anger. He chuckles, and makes no objection or denial to Luke’s accusation. 

But she _is_ angry. Her life, her destiny, has been decided for her and all this time, all along, she’s had no idea. Part of a legacy she’s never been aware of. Orchestrated by the man before her. 

Her parents had been good people. Not Vader and his nameless wife, who’s only appeared in brief, fleeting visions. Bail and Breha. Names that have dust covering them, unvisited and lonely in their death. Not honoured by her. Pawns in a game Palpatine had been playing her whole life, swept away carelessly when they lost their usefulness. Sudden memories, swelling like a flash flood - Breha combing her hair by the vanity, Bail running after her through the royal gardens, cavorting like a wild animal, just to hear her shrill giggles of faux terror. 

“My master has given me the gift of unimaginable power,” Leia says, and it’s as though she’s not the one speaking, but the shifting force within is moving her tongue and jaw. She sounds like a droid. “Power you could obtain.” 

  
  


“Never.” Luke says, and she feels his resolve, hard as metal and steel and kyber. 

“A shame,” Palpatine says idly. 

He waves his hand. 

The throne room descends into chaos. 

* * *

It’s over quickly, but it feels as though it goes on forever. 

Luke had pulled his saber from his belt and attempted to strike at the Emperor. Vader had ignited his own blade and engaged him in a duel, but Leia could see that his heart wasn’t in it. 

She goes to step forward, but she’s pinned to the spot by a glance from Palpatine. She is to wait. 

She thinks, suddenly, of when she had first come to the Imperial City. He had dragged a finger through her tears, and tasted them. 

Funny, how that had never registered as odd until now. 

She clenches her jaw, watching Vader take the defensive; Luke attacking him viciously with a two-handed grip, kicking him squarely in the chest and following him as he tumbles heavily down the stairs. He’s improved since his last run-in with Leia, movements fast and deadly. Surprisingly brutal for a Jedi. 

“Good boy,” Palpatine purrs, and Luke freezes like he’s been stunned, as though he’s just realising how aggressively he was running down to attack his prone father, who’s cybernetics heave as he stands unsteadily.

  
  


“I won’t fight you, father.” Luke says softly, and in the force he pulls himself back away from where he’d been edging towards the dark. 

It’s strangely admirable.

Vader hedges back up the stairs. He attacks again, but Luke neatly flips away.

“Do not lower your defenses,” Vader says. Through his mask, he sounds almost desperate.

“I feel your conflict, - both of you.” Luke calls from where he’s taken refuge on an overhanging support beam. “It’s not too late. We can do this, together.” 

“You do not know the power of the dark side,” Vader only replies, and the fight is on again.

  
  


Leia perhaps fools herself when she thinks that Vader won’t kill Luke. He’s already maimed one child, what’s the harm in doing it again? 

But she can see Vader gearing up to give the killing blow. In his mind, Leia’s sure that he thinks it’s merciful. And in some ways, it is. A life of servitude under the Emperor isn’t a life worth living. It really isn’t. 

For the first time in her entire life, Leia feels a monumental shift. She feels the dark side like it’s a parasite, sucking at her pain, her grief. Luke, on the other hand, sings with the force, pulling it to _him,_ not the other way round. 

Luke’s hands are shaking. She can see it from where she’s still standing by Palpatine’s throne. Why is she still standing there? Why hasn’t she moved forward to intervene? 

Luke lets out a cry, and even though circuitry is sparking from Vader’s gauntlet, he’s relentless, hitting Luke so hard that he falls onto his back, elbows hitting the floor. His green lightsaber is held up shakily.

Vader goes for the killing blow, but Leia’s eyes are elsewhere. 

Palpatine is inching forward in his seat. His sickly eyes gleam with excitement. He’d watched her that way, her whole childhood. Watched with a morbid arousal as she’d been broken down, beaten, punished, until she had no longer been a receptacle for pain, but a conduit. 

It’s all so clear now.

She knows what she has to do. 

She pulls out her saber, and without a second thought, takes off his head. 

Her red blade hums in the air for several seconds, as though suspended on a string. He hadn’t expected the blow. 

From the floor, his severed head is still grinning, yellow eyes dulled and yet still mocking in death. 

Vader is frozen, his own saber already shut off. And Luke...Luke is…

Leia’s running, carelessly stepping over the galactic Emperor’s fallen body, and then she’s on the floor. 

The funny thing about lightsabers is that there’s never any blood. But she knows, as soon as she kneels down, shoving hard at Vader’s hunched body to get a good look, that Luke is dying. 

“Father…” Luke murmurs. His hands spasm, trying to reach for the gaping hole of his stomach. 

“I did not- I didn’t mean-” Vader says slowly, like a malfunctioning droid. He reaches out to cover the wound, more tender than Leia’s ever seen him move, and even through his vo-coder, she hears his grief-drenched fear. Feels it in the force, too, pulsating off of him in waves. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Luke gasps now, his tanned skin growing pale. Blue eyes, glazed over, catch Leia’s. “This is how it has to be.” 

“Leia, I need you to,-” He cuts himself off with a wet sounding cough, and Leia has watched plenty of people die over the years, even revelled in the sensation of observing life slip away, but this isn’t just some enemy, a target to neutralise. This is Luke. 

Vader wraps his arm around him gingerly, pulling him up to partially sit up. Luke’s hand curls around Vader’s mangled wrist, ignoring the gored circuitry. 

“Please,” Luke gasps, unable to finish his sentence. His other hand goes to Leia’s, and she grips it in her own tightly. 

“There’s still good in you both,” Luke says. “All I wanted was...was…” 

She feels his connection to the living force beginning to sever. Vader’s inflicted wound eating away at him, pulling him under. 

“I just wanted my family,” He gasps, and Vader makes a sound like a dying animal, bending over awkwardly, hands grasping for Luke’s face. He puts his hands through his mop of hair, over his tear-stained cheeks, as though committing it all to memory. 

Leia just holds onto his hand. Even now, with Palpatine dead, and most likely the Empire with him, she’s too frightened to cry in front of others. 

When Luke’s life slips away, she immediately proves herself wrong. Tears flow easily, and she almost welcomes the surge of emotion after years of a cold, barren wasteland in her mind. 

  
  


She can’t stop hearing his words. His plea for his family to be reunited. Even after their countless fights, and Vader’s killing blow, it had been all that Luke had asked for. 

She leans over to kiss his cheek. Still warm, and their tears mingle for a moment. 

_It’s not too late,_ the force whispers in Luke’s voice. _There are ways of changing the past._

* * *

The Emperor’s rooms hold many artifacts, sacred to both Sith and Jedi. With him dead, the doors are easy to override. The force pulls her to a gleaming holocron, pulsating red in the low light. When her gloved hand touches it, Leia knows what she has to do.

  
  


When she returns to the Emperor’s throne room, she finds Vader has impaled himself on his own blade. His large, monstrous hand holds his son’s. Her brother. 

  
She entertains the thought of joining them, seeing the poetry, the completion in the act, but decides against it. 

She knows what she has to do. 

“There are ways of changing the past,” She murmurs aloud. She holds the holocron up to the light. 

Glances back at her father, dead in his shell of armour, and does not feel sadness. 

She feels hope. 

“I’ll see you soon.” Leia says.

The force hums around her. 

  
  


* * *

_**Anakin** _

They arrive at Varykino to give birth to the twins. 

It’s calm and warm, and the flowers are just as fragrant as Anakin remembers. They visit the place where they were married, Padmé hobbling slightly under the weight of her swollen stomach, but Anakin still sweeps her up into the air and spins her around under the pink setting sun. 

Even though they’ve both taken their leave from the Capitol, the aftermath of the war, and now the rebuilding of the Republic, means that Padmé’s com is at a constant buzz with messages and calls for advice or a comment. She works through them diligently whilst Anakin swims in the lake and finally gets around to adjusting R2’s defective after burners, and even cleans Threepio’s chest plates until they’re a gleaming gold. 

It takes so long for Anakin to truly relax. For years, his mind has been running like a well-working droid, completing objectives from dawn till dusk. To have days that stretch out endlessly, with no tasks to finish, no soldiers to command, and no seppies to fight, is a definite shock to the system. He patrols the lake house as Padmé works, - the war is mostly over, but many planetary systems are still so stubborn, still unwilling to stand down, that there’s still a possibility of an attack. 

But no attack ever comes. Since Palpaitne had been executed, it was like the entire war had collapsed in on itself, - millions surrendering as the Republic took back control. All of his orders, including chip implants in the clone army, are slowly but surely being dislodged by the Jedi and their allies. 

And even though it’s not his fight anymore, Anakin still keeps his eyes on Ahsoka and Obi-Wan’s progress on the outer rim, through daily com calls, and by harassing an exasperated Cody and Rex. Ahsoka, a knight now in her own right, has inherited the 501st. 

He visits the Gungans, and finally has the time to modify his fighter, and even fixes a loose component in his arm. His body starts to relax - he’s sleeping better, eating better, and feels more at peace than he has for the entire war. 

It’s like a holiday, a dream, until Padmé’s waters break on the balcony of the lake house, and then it’s a panic-filled nightmare.

  
  
The omens visiting Anakin in his sleep had started soon after meeting Leia. Visions of Padme, screaming out in agony for him, whilst he was helpless and useless and his wife was _dying, -_ have definitely frightened Anakin. They had stopped, shortly after Dooku had been captured and he had testified against the Chancellor, revealing him as the Sith Lord responsible for the war. He can only imagine how they would have progressed, had they not caught him before it was too late. 

And even though Anakin is frightened, pacing back and forth,- calling up Obi-Wan to share his paternal panic with, then harassing the medical droid so thoroughly that he’s banished to the hallway to wait for Padmé to be fully checked over before she’s ready to give birth, - he is excited. 

Because the war is over, and his ties to the Jedi have been voided. Cut gently, like a ribbon with scissors, instead of being gored and torn. The separation had been rather civil - they’d even let him keep his lightsaber. They hadn’t been surprised to hear of his relationship with the Senator of Naboo, Snips and Obi-Wan least of all. It turns out, he and Padme hadn’t exactly been...discreet. 

  
But the war is over. The war is over! And for once the Jedi order is cutting slack, because Anakin caught Dooku, and Dooku outed his Sith master, and, therefore the prophecy of the Chosen One has been delivered. So, it's only fair that Anakin is allowed to live out his days in peace with his wife and children.

He’s been hard on himself his whole life. Pushing and pushing for perfection. Never good enough, never strong enough, never powerful enough. 

But Anakin deserves this mercy. This peace that he’s sought for so long is what he deserves. It feels good to finally acknowledge that. 

He’s called back into the bedroom, and he goes in with a pounding heart and sweating palm. He almost wishes Rex were at his side to offer combat support. 

The twins are born in the middle of the night. Luke first, squealing and kicking and red and _alive,_ and already Anakin feels him in the force, a ball of light that brings tears to his eyes. 

The medical droids clean him off and then he’s in Anakin’s arms. They stare at each other and Anakin cannot believe that this was his son, staring up at him, so tiny and small. 

Padmé’s hand clenches on his leg, and Anakin quickly turns, covering Luke’s ears as she lets out a painful wail. 

“You are doing well,” The droid says, “Push once more.” 

Leia is silent, and there’s a sickening lurch in his stomach, but a firm pat to her reddened chest has her bawling, showcasing an impressive set of lungs. 

And then Leia is there, swaddled like her brother, with blue eyes that he knows will turn brown, and fuzzy dark hair. 

  
  


He weeps as the sun comes up over the lake, unable to pull himself away from his two children, standing over their crib, curling up around Padmé as she feeds them, watching the medical droid as he checks them over and assures them for the tenth time that they are _fine._

There's the involuntary thought of his other self, the Anakin Leia had described. De-limbing and killing his children. But when he looks down at them as they sleep, Anakin knows in his heart that he would never let any harm come to them. From anybody. 

The sun comes up over the lakes. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka will arrive in a matter of days to see Anakin and Padmé, and the children, and to convalesce as their troops return to Coruscant. In the dawning light of sunbreak, Anakin smiles. 

“Thank you,” He murmurs aloud. “Thank you for pulling me from the dark.”

The force pulses around him. His smile grows.

From the balcony, he hears a small cry, quickly accompanied by another. 

It’s something he could get used to.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> sorry for any typos! thanks for reading


End file.
